[Car_Upgrade] Grey 205 Gti

[dcc 855]

This is my 205

 

 

This is my 205 on the left, before I bought it (Stu owned it here), my old 205 gti6 on the right (owned then by WooDooUK), my 106 gti (at the time) and Large's (Huw) red 205 mi16 rally car.

 

 

Now most importantly, this is my 205 today! After her first test drive in 4 years off the road!

 

 

 

So, bought it from a member (haha) on here a few years ago (hexamstu), after only ever seeing it once on the road before, and agreeing to buy it when it was in a garage in swansea. there was nothing in it. no seats, engine had all but been removed, the rear axle was half off, but it was clear the car needed to be saved. I had a quick look at the sills for rust and the headlamp panel - there was nothing! So I bought it, money changed hands and I kept it in the garage for a few months while doing little bits to it. I took a big risk buying this car from Stu as I knew it had been smashed into a kerb after it had been stolen from his uni house in Swansea.

 

 

 

 

 

The old engine was initially removed due to poor oil pressure, which later turned out to prove fruitful for Ant when he simply changed the oil and all was well! By this time I was balls deep in stripping my white 205 to get myself a bit of money in my pocket.

 

 

anyway - long story short, lots happened over the next 3 years - I simply 'put' it back together with the bits Stu had already sourced, but I wasn't really happy with how things were going.

 

 

So I put it back together so it would roll, picked it up with my dad, after telling him I had had it in Swansea for nearly a year without him knowing :| Then I set about getting serious with the bits for it.

 

First of all I went and bought an engine from a member off here and a set of b8's for the front (in place of some gaz gold coilovers I had bought for it).

 

So much happened in between were the started and where it is now, I'll just jump a few years as it will save you a load of pointless reading.

 

Car is now at the farm where I live during the week in mid Wales.

 

First job was to assemble steering rack with a new subframe (as below), painted phase 1 xsara rack hammered gold, subframe, droplinks, track rods and the gear linkage (Baker BM bronze bush kit) quadrant with hammered silver, and a satin black for the ARB (with new pug bushes).

 

 

Gave a lick of paint to the battery tray too with the same Hammered Silver:

 

 

Also bought some 206 GTI 180 brakes, with Ferrodo DS3000 pads, gave them a lick of paint (only picture I have of them):

 

 

When that was fitted, I took my attention to installing my nice new Sandy Brown engine management loom, getting the instrument cluster wiring sorted, finishing off the new brake lines, installing a new 23mm MC, and attacking any sign of surface rust (orange patches):

 

 

So then it ended up looking like this:

 

 

 

I took it back to bare metal, treated the rust in some rather 'difficult' places :

 

 

and

 

 

 

 

 

[welshpug 1,621]

ha! I remember changing the clutch for stu after it got nicked, the clutch had blown up and it had a dead tyre.

[dcc 855]

The engine I had bought had a few issues, well 'bodges', which I wasnt aware of. So I fitted new Xu10 thermostat housing, fitted dipstick properly, and fixed a few other bits.

 

Sent the cam pulley off to Sandy who sent it to Colin Satchell, as it seems Catcams cannot produce anything properly...

 

The pulley was out of alignment by 1.5mm or so! Mother of wobbles! Sandy send it back, along with the wiring for the engine, with just 0.2mm or so - much better!

 

This is the result of a s*itty manufacturing process:

 

 

Got Meirion to help with the cam timing and fitting a new cambelt, as the old one was 4 years old, only covering a few thousand miles:

 

 

And a cookie to who can guess the cam/spec - excluding Meirion (3.16mm lift):

 

 

 

Here you can see the engine in its place (finally...)

 

Note the GTi6 / Mi16 flywheel, with BX16v Valeo Clutch (£55 bargain from LCSLouth):

 

 

The summer weather turned quite sh*tty so I ended up giving the rear beam a good clean and fitting that:

 

(28mm arb courtesy of BAz, 21mm torsion bars courtesy of Anthony - bought the beam as being rebuilt from another member on here, wasn't quite true, but was stripped and reassembled accordingly)

Not bothered about the paint, as it will eventually be replaced with a 1.9 unit, with xsara rear arms.

 

Pic comparing the ARB's!

 

 

And of course the rear beam:

 

 

The engine ended up being pulled out a few times, in the process of that I had bought a xsara gearbox back from Bluebolt (Chris Ghinn) - the suretrac AP diff fitted to that went to MEirion, and I kept the gearbox, cleaned it and it looks like this:

 

 

Also fitted this (courtesy of Miles):

Which I can tell you now is flipping brilliant

 

 

So then my attention focused on getting the car to a point where it was ready to go to mapping. the dashboard was a little concern as the one fitted was smashed to bits. but the instrument cluster still worked so Sandy was happy with that. I bought a few tyres from the PE2 group buy on here, and fitted them to some spare wheels I had bought (OZ Super T's).

 

Can't find any photos of that yet, maybe if I try harder I'll find some!

 

I also bought some bumper supports, stainless bolts for the bumper rubber (courtesy of Tom Fenton) and some new bumper sliders.

 

 

While I had some spare time (and money) I fitted a new heater matrix, a new heater fan/motor and refurbished my rheostat. I also bought some grey interior carpet and a late phase 2 set of door cars from BensonMi and got those fitted. I took this time to check over the gear stick, so ordered new selectors from Miles, but also bought 2 new white 'plastic blocks' (courtesy of Farmer) which wedge themselves around the main gear arm. The gear stick is slightly different as you can see, it has a quaiffe gearknob fitted by putting some threaded bar down the 205 gear stick and just tac'd in to hold it steady, which was done by WooDooUK (Mark). The interior also came from Mark following him breaking his car after it was shunted by a French knobber.

 

 

I refreshed my driving lamp brackets and fitted my brand new Siem driving lamps (which came with the car):

 

 

and of course fitted some protectors courtesy of PSCUK:

 

 

 

So now that will lead us on nicely to the 'engine malarkey'...

[dcc 855]

So got the engine in

 

 

Fitted new Baker BM engine mounts, oil breathers and filler and a new set of BBM black silicon water hoses:

 

 

Fitted the 45mm Jenvey throttle bodies:

 

 

Eye'd up the radiator:

 

 

Fitted the trumpets (note this was a stupid stage to do this - missing the backplate :| :

 

 

 

So then found somewhere suitable for the oil catch tank - It is also worth noting that I cut the lower section between front panels and welded up a bracket to fit the radiator, and possibly an oil cooler in future:

 

 

 

So it progressed:

 

 

 

 

Then I realised my mistake:

 

 

Fitting the backplate - now this is a job which should not have been underestimated! It was a complete and utter tw*t of a job, possibly the most fiddly job!

 

 

 

So then we're at this stage:

 

 

 

Welded a mounting point for the FPR on the driver side wing:

 

 

and eventually:

 

 

Which takes us to the stage where we are ready for mapping! A phone call to Sandy and 650 mile round trip ahead...

[dcc 855]

Had some spare time so I had a go at tidying the wiring from the engine bay side - Worth noting here that the DTA loom needs the bulkhead hole 'enlarging' for it to fit (note the bulkhead hole is the old bonnet catch hole):

 

 

This is a photo from me moving the dash wiring - the multiplugs are in the same place, but thought it might be useful for somebody to see:

Can just about spot the plugs by the steering wheel

 

 

So here is something pretty cool with the throttle bodies - when I ordered them Sandy suggested that I go for a 'new' style throttle linkage.

 

Compare this to your standard Jenvey linkage - about £2.50 worth of push bike bits:

 

 

Anyway! Enough about boring crap - The mapping!

 

When I put the car on the trailer, I caught the fuel lines which put a little slit in them, which Meirion fixed at SRD, we also changed over the thermotsat housing, as the XU10 unit I had fitted had deteriorated and blew out the 90degree elbow. so replaced with another unit Meirion had laying around. The car needed to be tracked, so we did this on the floor of SRD. Then Sandy checked the cam timing. It seemed out tracing paper method was fairly close, but 0.45mm out! luckily we have about a metre of room in these 8v engines

 

SO after pissing about for best part of 2 hours - we finally managed to get Sandy in the car and started on the mapping. Instantly an issue arose - BCPR7ES plugs are not good enough, and we needed a set of 8's. local factors didn't have any and Sandy only had 3 spare in his BMW's boot - so he mapped it as best as he could but said the plugs NEED to be replaced asap!

 

 

 

Well after 4 or 5 hours of mapping and some serious abuse on the rollers, Sandy had pretty much completed most of the mapping points.

 

 

She started to show some promising figures more than happy with what she was achieving, I think Meirion mentioned it made around 145 or so. These obviously are to be taken with a pinch of salt.

She must have heard me feeling so joyful, as all of a sudden BOOM... Sandy shut the engine off and said something wasn't right.

 

He called over Mark of SRD who confirmed Sandy's fears of a diagnosed a big end knock! Devastating news.

 

Pushed the car back on to the trailer, and made off to Wales around 5pm. Hit Porthcawl around 10pm, went and got a subway and played some pool.

 

 

The car was pushed into a barn, and before I knew it, a few months had gone by. Eventually I bothered to strip down the engine to see the severity of the damage:

 

 

 

All tabs on all bearings were intact. none showed any sign of movement - so I was a bit pissed off - I assumed something worse was wrong.

 

I stripped the engine out and took it to Meirion, who fully stripped the engine. I had a message on facebook less than 10 minutes after he started to strip it...

 

"The flywheel bolts weren't tight - engines fine."

 

F. M. L.

 

The engine was 'put' together and in my haste I simply forgot to torque up the flywheel bolts. as a result it cost me upwards of £500. expensive yet simple mistake.

 

To be safe and sure, the engine was completely stripped, the connecting rods, pistons, crank and liners taken to South Wales Pistons and checked for 'roundness' and anything to be worries about - the report was All clear (they did that all free of charge) - so I proceeded to order a full engine rebuild kit from them, which Meirion then had the opportunity to flex his tools at. He rebuild the entire engine. The total cost of the rebuild was around £150 for parts, that with water pump, bearings, belt, head bolts, gasket etc...

 

While the engine was with Meirion, I decided to be brave and purchased some nice shiney wishbones made Jeff Skitt Engineering (courtesy of Fat Tony):

 

​

Edited January 11, 2014 by dcc

[credowan 15 1 Cars]

Thanks for taking the time to write this thread up, gotta love a good thread with lots of pics, the car is looking like a weapon and a real credit to you and welshpug, a real labour of love, the problems you've had, although a pain and costly will all be worth it in the end

 

Keep up the great work

Gary

Edited January 12, 2014 by credowan

[welshpug 1,621]

so yeah, quickly found the cause of the weird big end like noise when we tried to hold the crank steady with a lever wedged in the ring gear of the flywheel, so we could crack off the crank bolt, and the damned thing clunked back and forth Dan was a bit then a bit

 

Basically the rattling happened at around 5.5k RPM, which was when the Dowel locating the flywheel said enough, too much torque! and the flywheel was swinging back and forth a few degrees against the loose bolts.

 

So I guess it takes about 150 lbft to snap an 8mm solid dowel

 

 

 

 

 

We thought we might as well crack on and strip it anyway, as its not a difficult task and parts are not that expensive, it will mean the engine is a known quantity for years to come.

 

Wear on the big ends looked quite normal.

 

 

 

Mains looked fair too, no damage just normal wear patterns, crank case looked pretty clean, no dirty yellow/brown oil stains

 

 

 

whipped the head off and clamped the liners down.

 

 

 

 

 

cleaned up the head's mating face, thankfully no corrosion and a straight edge across it looked good.

 

[welshpug 1,621]

One rather scary detail I found whilst disassembling was the flywheel end main cap dowel had been pinched and was squashed under the cap against the block, so essentially this bearing was running with far too much clearance!

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully being a bit of a hoarder saved the day here, I dressed the damaged cap and pulled a dowel from a spare engine block I had.

 

 

 

At this point, though everything looked good, crank had no damage on it at all, the bearings were already oversized in the big ends, so I thought it best to get a pro to check over the crank and the bearing bores for us, at the same time I did a bit of asking around with a few local suppliers to see where best to get the parts needed, turned out that the local motorfactor really isn't the place to ask, as they quoted over even the main dealer pricing

 

However the local engine reconditioners came to the rescue with a very good quite on the bits, as Dan said they checked the engine over FOC and supplied the bearings and gaskets, ironically from the same trade supplier as my local motorfactor...

 

Ordered the crank bolts mains cap hockey stick seal and flywheel dowel and whilst we had the engine nearly totally apart, thought it would be wise to replace the liner seals as well, I didn't have any piston ring compressors, however its not hard to leave the pistons in place and pull the liners out with them still inside.

 

[welshpug 1,621]

Turned out it was a good thing we did decide to pull the liners out, as number one liner was surrounded in some pretty mukky crap, evidently from a poor condition cooling system with far too weak a cooling fluid mix...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALWAYS use antifreeze kids!

 

Doesn't matter if its a summer toy which never has anything in it in the winter, its a corrosion inhibitor and a boiling point lifter as much as an anti-freeze agent, one could argue infact that its better to leave the stuff in there than to drain the engine and leave the steel liners exposed to fresh air.

 

 

Thankfully they cleaned up well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

with the block and liners scrubbed of the silty crap, and oiled up to prevent corrosion, I cracked on with fitting the seals and getting the liners back in.

 

 

 

got them all in and oiled up the bores to stop them picking up any corrosion and make it easier to slide the pistons out of the way.

 

 

 

 

 

o.e quality gasket (Payen have supplied gaskets to PSA for decades, so its a good brand to use)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

head on not forgetting the washers and the larger spacer under the bolt above the water pump, another thing annoyingly missing when it was built previously for some reason or another, just sloppy workmanship!

 

 

 

Beer, haynes manual, grease and a torque wrench, a good evening in I think

 

 

 

that got the engine to this stage, which is where I stuck a sheet over it to keep the dust off and left it to crack on the next evening.

 

[welshpug 1,621]

So, the start of the next evening looked like this.

 

 

 

Yup, I got hold of some Plastigauge, just to make 100% certain that the bearing tolerances were good.

 

 

crank lowered in carefully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

strip of plastigauge on each journal and torqued the caps up.

 

 

 

 

and they all came in well within spec.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also checked the crank end float, re-used the original bearings here as they looked fine and don't really come under any great load, again well within spec thankfully, unlike some engines I have taken apart that have exhibited a distinctive clunk of the crank sliding side to side along the mains!!

 

and onto the the bit I really did hate doing, these things are a right bloody faff to get to sit right, not stretch too much and to get the cap to slide down straight into the dowels!

 

 

 

got it nailed in the end thankfully, and trimmed them to the 1mm protruding as specified in the Haynes manual, then got the oil pump and seal carrier on with the crank case stiffening plate, placed all the bits on top of the sealant but left them half an hour before torquing down, then the next day trimmed off all the excess, you dont want any of this stuff blocking up your oil pump pickup gauze.

 

 

 

Stuck a sheet over it and left it for the night, turned out it was 2am by this time!

[welshpug 1,621]

When dan bought the engine it didn't have any belt covers, so when I was over helping my mate Kev (pugtop) have a little tidy up in his shed, and rebuild the back wall after an ivy bush had gone rampant and pulled the back of it down, I acquired a set of covers.

 

 

 

 

Fitted a new water pump, as the one on there was marked something like 2006!

 

 

 

 

 

Followed by a bit of faffing to get the cam timing vaguely close to spec, so at least it will run, Sandy makes this look so damned easy the bugger

 

[welshpug 1,621]

you may have noticed the blue paint had started to go missing...

 

 

I got annoyed with it and attacked it with a wire brush attachment in a drill

 

 

 

 

Much better I think

 

Note the top edge of the thermostat now has a 3mm hole in it, its a trick to aid bleeding I have seen in quite a few Peugeot and Citroen sport build manuals, so I do it to all the engines I work on if I get chance, it does help a lot on some engines, especially those with lowered radiators.

 

The thermostat housing bleed screw was as always seems to be on these snapped off, so a replacement was dug out and fitted once the remains of the old one drilled and tapped out.

 

 

 

 

Did the same to the sump as the engine block, as the plug was leaking the paint was knackered around it, and it was generally flaking everywhere, a good blast of WD40 will keep this looking good for ages.

 

 

 

 

 

And last but not least, I got the flywheel bolted on with the new dowel and bolts, torqued and thread-locked properly, and the timing plate bolted up too.

 

 

 

 

 

And there we have it, Dan came over one evening to collect it, and it disappeared back off to west Wales in the back of his Xsara.

[rallyeash 155]

Good write up, fingers crossed this time on the rollers. It's never a straight forward when mapping, so nerve racking!

[Miles 331 1 Cars]

When's it going back down?

 

That ARB, It looks like one of the old Welded up ones?

[Roon 29 1 Cars]

Great build thread dan! Glad the gearbox money was spent well

 

Feel for you on the mapping been there done that heart in your mouth stuff 90% of the time!

[welshpug 1,621]

Ohh, one small detail I forgot to add, we weighed the fully built engine, minus ancillaries and manifolds but including flywheel, at 78 kilos.

[dcc 855]

Not likely to be going back down any time soon. I need to finish up some bits and bobs first I think.

[andy-mac 4]

should have any problems next time you go to get it mapped

 

good right up

[Anthony 1,000]

Glad to hear that it's finally running and almost back on the road

 

Certainly was a sorry old state after it was stolen/recovered and then partly taken apart, but should be nigh on unrecognisable from that once you have finished (with more than a little of Mei's help)

 

Flywheel was indeed an expensive mistake, but these things happen and at least there was no lasting damage beyond your pride and wallet. At least you now know that the engine is fresh and should be good for 10's of thousands of miles... and lets face it, you won't ever forget to torque up flywheel bolts again

 

The old engine was initially removed due to poor oil pressure, which later turned out to prove fruitful for Ant when he simply changed the oil and all was well!

Yep, turned out a bit of a bargain that did

 

After giving it a quick check over, I stuck it in the car with a sump full of fresh 10W40 oil and another filter figuring I had nothing to lose and it was spot on - indeed, ironically it's actually got better oil pressure than most 8v's out there (approximately 6 bar with the oil at ~90 degrees)

 

Lesson for people there - mineral oil degrades badly over time, and before condeming the engine a quick oil and filter change is well worth doing! Of course, had that been done in the first place, I guess that it wouldn't have been taken off the road and Dan wouldn't have ended up with the car.

 

The engine is still going strong in my 205 and drove all across Europe in the summer without missing a beat

[chipstick 382 1 Cars]

Many hours of graft and determination gone in to that! I do like a Graphite

[calvinhorse 870]

Well done chaps! Enjoyed reading that Dan

[dcc 855]

Broke it :|

 

You can imagine my surprise as this happens whilst I am 'testing' my brakes along the farm track.

 

 

But no panic, fixed it! Slightly 'blingy' but not crappy deteriorated plastic, so it should survive!

 

(yes I know the car is now stinking. The farm has muddy tracks - Also the brakes work now)

 

Edited January 18, 2014 by dcc

[calvinhorse 870]

Deteriorated plastic my arse! You mean you over tightened it!

[welshpug 1,621]

Yup

[dcc 855]

So a few little jobs sorted. Got bored Wednesday and ended up ringing a local MOT centre.

 

So anyway the interior hasn't changed at all, and the engine bay is still a mess, but I thought I would put it in, see where it fails, fix it, and go from there.

 

First thing to note, the radiator repair hasn't been 100% successful, need to get that sorted. it lost about 500mls of water but not too concerned as we know the locations of the leak.

 

 

Advisory on rear brake lines being supported with plastic supports. Apparently these need to be swapped for metal clips, have got them ordered.

 

The wiring in the engine bay he said was a bit untidy and could do with being boxed, so will get that sorted.

 

and the parking break was at the end of its 'adjustment' (last click). The handbrake didnt get much/any use until the test drive on the way to mot, so I guess it has 'bedded in' a little.

 

I took it then for this

 

A few pics from the MOT

 

The 'problem' was that the MOT centre was at the end of a few lanes, very muddy, flooded and empty